The century just passed was an intellectual watershed. The end of the second World War marked the end of 500 years of Western domination, physically (colonization) and intellectually (Eurocentrism, racism). The changes in philosophical discourse followed suit of this new world reality. The contemporary philosopher was (and is) then expected and required to reach conclusions by means of writing not containing the writer's own views and opinions, especially those opinions of a moral, ethical, or religious concern. The new philosophy thus aims to render more and more "antiseptic" views. This was done as a reaction to a paradigm shift regarding the efficacy of culture and language on the mind.
Preamble:
There is no end to the explanatory power of revealing the deep-seated psychological bases of ethical standards. The ethical types prevelant in the United States can be shown to arise from stances taken on philosophical questions that could not possibly ever be proven. One is the question of whether human nature is inherently good or inherently evil. The other is the vexed question of capitalism. Here we investigate this connection.
Preamble:
For a 17 years the Unabomber had alluded the FBI even after sending mail bombs which killed three and injured 23 others. In letters to the FBI, the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski) would refer to himself in the plural, using "we" instead of "you", and calling his imaginary terrorist group simply "FC." In April of 1995, the Unabomber threatened the New York Times that he would mail more bombs if a 35,000 word manifesto was not published by September 24th. September 18th issues of the New York Times and the Washington Post contained the Manifesto in its entirety. It was a large article on perceived woes of the Technological Revolution (often called the "Industrial Revolution" in the manifesto). On April 3, 1996, Kaczynski is arrested by the FBI near Lincoln, Montana.
Many who are not knowledgeable enough perceive Kaczynski as some sort of environmental prophet. I present here an anti-thesis to his manifesto.
Preamble: In 1933 German logician Kurt Gödel publised a mathematical proof of his incompleteness theorem; the results of which made him the "most important logician since Aristotle". Incompleteness tells us that any such deductive system created in any given language will contain meaningful statements that are undecidable. i.e. that cannot be shown to be true or false. The result was earth-shattering since it showed the whole system of mathematical thought must be incomplete. Here we examine the far-reaching ramifications of incompleteness in science, philosophy, and mathematics.